1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical fiber array. The present invention claims priority from International Application No. PCT/JP2005/005615 filed on Mar. 18, 2005, which claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-100872 filed on Mar. 30, 2004, and the contents of both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have conventionally been known optical fiber arrays in which a substrate with housing grooves for housing optical fibers formed therein and a cover plate for covering the optical fibers are joined with adhesive, wherein relationships such as distance between the substrate and the cover plate are defined to increase the adhesiveness therebetween. For example, the optical fiber array described in JP-A 2001-343547 keeps the distance between the outermost housing grooves and the end portions of the substrate, the distance Y between the substrate and the cover plate, and the distance L between the contact points through the housed optical fibers and the housing grooves and the cover plate, respectively, within certain ranges to increase the adhesive strength therebetween so as not to allow the optical fibers to be displaced from the center positions of the housing grooves, which prevents the transmission characteristics of optical signals from being degraded. There have also been known such kind of optical fiber arrays in which adhesive surfaces of a substrate and a cover plate are devised when joined with adhesive to increase the adhesive strength therebetween. For example, in the optical fiber array described in JP-A2001-343547, the surface between the housing grooves that are formed in the substrate to house the optical fibers and the end portions of the substrate is made to have rough surface to increase the adhesive area and thereby the adhesiveness, which prevents the transmission characteristics of optical signals from being degraded. The contents of JP-A 2001-343547 are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.